Santa

Ok, so I obviously failed at catching up on the blog last week. Oh well, life goes on. I will do my best this week. Here are our pictures from when we took the kids to see Santa. Addie got to go see Santa last year and didn't like or dislike it. This year, that was Levi. Addie definitely disliked Santa this year. But, he seemed to get over it quickly because Addie got plenty of presents!

Here is our little Santa:
Just Levi with Santa:

Not being brave for her little brother:

Santa held on tight and this is the best pic we got of the 2 kids with him:

After the traumatic experience with Santa, we weren't sure if Addie would want to ride the train in the mall or not, but she got right on-all by herself:

Riding:

Christmas #1...Mills River, NC

We have had a busy last week and a half, so I'm going to try to get caught up on here this week before more stuff happens that I will post about. So for today, I'll post pictures from Christmas #1. Since we knew we would be gone for Christmas and would not have enough room in our car for some bigger presents for our kids, we decided to have a Christmas celebration at home last Monday morning (it helped that Bob was off work also). Once the kids were up, fed, and dressed, we took them into the living room where we had rearranged the furniture and put out some wrapped presents for each of the kids. We had no idea how Addie would do with opening presents-last time she had a present to open, she didn't open it. But, apprently she learned about presents since then because she was all about ripping into them. We didn't even get a "before" picture of Addie with her unopened gifts:
Levi was very patient and waited for Addie to finish before he started the unwrapping process:

And here he is with his new stuff:

And Addie with her newly opened toys:

Addie also liked what Levi got:

We attempted a picture of the 2 kids together under the tree, but this picture was way better:

For those of you who haven't heard of a plasma car, it is awesome-fun for all ages. We thought Addie would take a little while to figure out the concept since it's not like any other toy she has riden, but she caught on the same day she got it (you can't tell in this picture, though). The child (or adult-Bob and I have both gone for a ride on it) puts their feet up on the car and uses his/her hand on the steering wheel and turns it back and forth quickly to make the car go. It's a lot of fun!

We braved the cold to take a ride in the wagon (notice the remains of our snowman in the background):

I'll try to update soon with pictures of going to see Santa as well as Christmas #2.

Snow!

The snow is here! We have been living in Asheville for the past 9 months or so and have wondered what winter would be like here. Last year, Asheville apparently got more snow than usual, so we didn't know what to expect. And, though winter has not officially begun yet, I think it is going to be another snowy winter here. We have already had 2 snows and it is only mid-December. The snow unexpectedly came during the night Saturday night and church was cancelled everywhere. So, we headed out to play in the snow. Addie loved it, but had some trouble with her winter gloves...we were not prepared for her to play with snow apparently. We're working on it, though, since it looks like we are going to have lots of it over the next few months-we have 2 chances for it before this coming Sunday! Here are some pics I got from our fun:
Levi was a trooper. I kept having to bend down to help Addie get up out of the snow, or to put her soaking wet gloves back on, but he didn't whine at all.

Loving every minute of it:

Building a snowman with the neighbors:

I'm sure there will be many more snowy pictures!

Talking

Addie's latest thing is definitely talking. I'm sure that will continue for a long, long time...hopefully using our language, English, more than her own little Addie language that she often likes to use these days. Recently, she has been waiting at the door for Daddy to get home in the late afternoon, and as soon as he opens the door, she starts telling him all about her day. It's awesome-Daddy can't even get a word in because she talks so much. Not that he even knows what she is saying, but that is okay. On another note, Pops and Dottie came down for a visit last weekend, which was fun, though Daddy was sick while they were here (thankfully the rest of us have not had the stomach bug he had). So, here are more recent pics. And, as a sidenote for anyone interested, you can order 50 free prints with free shipping at Snapfish.com today using the coupon code HPINK50 at checkout. So, that is 50 pictures totally free-I just did it!

Here is Addie modeling a Christmas hat she is borrowing from her cousin Michaela. And yes, she is sitting in Levi's Bumbo seat-one of her favorite places to sit right now. It is amazing how appealing Levi's baby stuff is to her now that she is 20 months old:
Dottie with Levi:

Levi with Pops:

The kiddos with Mommy:

Addie catching up on the news:

Levi enjoying his Bumbo seat (thanks, Emily!):

All bundled up. When we got inside, I asked Addie if she wanted to take off her coat, hat, and she shoes. She replied "no." So, she stayed bundled for a while as she played indoors.

Matching siblings:

This video somewhat shows Addie's new love of talking...to her brother. Maybe she thinks he can understand her better that we can since he make similar noises as her sometimes. At least Levi seemed interested and entertained by what she had to say-I have a feeling she will be talking to him a lot in the years to come (most likely telling him what to do if Addie is anything like her mommy was with Uncle Nate).

Recent pics

I know it has been a few weeks now since I last posted on the blog. Sorry about that. Just to update, the 4 of us went down to Atlanta the weekend before Thanksgiving for Logan's 1st birthday party (Addie and Levi's cousin). I then stayed in Atlanta until the following Friday with the kids while Bob came back up to Asheville to work Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. It was a fun week, but also tiring (of course) and we were glad to be back at home on black Friday. I would post pictures from Logan's party and Thanksgiving, but I somehow didn't take hardly any-it was a busy week! So, here are some random pictures of the kids from the past few weeks.

Addie likes to read books to Levi lots of times:

Just hanging out together:

Our happy, growing boy:

Happy birthday Logan!

"Helping" decorate the Christmas tree:

Happy with Daddy...Levi definitely seems to be a Daddy's boy:

Showing off in his exersaucer...something we pulled out last week and are glad we did because he loves it!

Siblings:

And we also pulled out the walker:

Trying on Daddy's hat:

More aunts, uncles, and cousins!

As many of you know, Bob and I both come from big families, which makes for lots of aunts, uncle, and cousins for our kids. However, we do not live real close to any of them, so it takes quite a while for our kids to meet all of the family (in fact, Addie still has an aunt to meet...Levi still has a couple aunts and uncles, and several cousins to meet). This past weekend, though, Bob's sister (Jennifer) and her family came to meet their newest nephew as well as to introduce us to their latest addition. They had Julianne exactly 13 days before we had Levi, so it took a while for us to see each other since neither of our families was really wanting to travel in the early days of having an infant. But, we are so glad they made the effort and came this past weekend. We all had a good time (as far as I know) and we look forward to seeing them again at Christmas!

Here is Trevor (3 and a half) hanging out with Levi. He loved to give Levi kisses and tickle him under his chin:

We all went to the park for a while on Saturday. Addie on the slide:

The babies hanging out in their carseats together. We had several people ask if they were twins, to which we responded "thankfully, no!".

Addie loved the swings the most-I think everyone had a turn pushing her. This is Michaela (almost 7) pushing Addie on the swing:

Aunt Jennifer and Julianne:

The cousins:

The babies:

Uncle J.R. knocked Levi out. I think it was probably easy since J.R. was watching football-I'm sure Levi was bored:

We went for a walk and took a break to sit on a bench by the lake:

Aunt Jennifer reading some bedtime stories. Notice Addie's "bangs"...they are incredibly long, but don't want to get out of her eyes!

Rolling

I've posted several videos of Addie lately, so I thought it's about time I post one of Levi. We don't want him to feel left out or anything. Plus, he learned a new trick! On Monday, I decided to put Levi on his stomach to have some "tummy time"...something I hadn't really done. I know it's important for strengthening the neck and eventually learning to roll over, but somehow had forgotten to put him on his stomach to play each day. Well, I put Levi on his stomach and within 10 seconds, he rolled himself onto his back. I couldn't believe it! Levi is 2 and a half months old. I have no idea if that is early for him to roll or not, but I know Addie didn't roll until she was 4 months old. And even then, it was from her back to her stomach-she didn't roll from her stomach to her back for much longer than that! After he rolled, I called Bob up to see it, but Levi wouldn't do it again-of course. But, it was obvious that he was capable of doing it again-he has such a strong neck and was lifting it up so high as well as pushing off with his arms-he just wasn't rolling. So, we then thought it was kind of a fluke (since he wouldn't roll again) and have been waiting to see if he would do it again...and he did! On Wednesday, every time I put him on his stomach (which was quite a few times, since I've been wanting to see if he can really roll), he rolled onto his back within 10 seconds or so. That means we have an official roller! He is definitely nowhere close to rolling from his back to his stomach, which is a good thing-we don't need that kind of mobility yet! Here he is, showing off:

Another "trick" he seems to have learned this week is sleeping longer at night. For quite a while now (over a month, at least) Levi has been sleeping for 7-8 hours at night, eating, then going back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. The only problem was, he was always ready for bed around 8:00, so sleeping for 8 hours still meant me getting up to feed him in the middle of the night. That isn't so bad, but since he was sleeping 8 hours, I would have like for it to have been 10-6 or something like that, so that I would be sleeping for that long, but that just wasn't possible for him. On Monday night, though, Levi went to bed at 8, as usual, but didn't wake up to eat until 7 AM! It was awesome! He then went back to his "normal" schedule on Tuesday and Wednesday night, then last night, he went for 11 hours again! Hopefully he is easing himself into a new and improved schedule! We are hopeful!

Hoopla and Halloween

On Saturday afternoon, our church had a "Halloween alternative" event called "Hoopla." Basically, there were about 50 different little games set up outside for kids to play, then probably 10 or 15 inflatables set up in a big field, as well as horses to ride, a climbing wall, live music, free popcorn and cotton candy, and more! It was crazy (there were 7,000+ people there), but a lot of fun! Addie mostly played games that had the name "toss" in them-she wasn't a great tosser, though, she just knew how to cheat-and nobody cared! She got at least one piece of candy after every game she played, so she got quite a bti of candy. She really enjoyed playing the games, but did not understand the concept of waiting in line (shocker) or having to let other people take turns. If she had it her way, she would have just kept playing the same game over and over. Daddy worked in a booth while I took Addie and Levi around. But, Daddy was able to play a few games with Addie before and after he had to work the booth. Those are when I was able to take pictures-it wasn't even a thought for me to try to pull out the camera when I had both kids on my own.

Ready to play some games:

Bean bag toss:

Fun with Daddy:

Ring toss:

Going down a big slide with Daddy-and loving it!

Getting tired:

Sunday was obviously Halloween, so I dressed the kids in their Halloween shirts for church and got a couple pictures. That evening, we took the kids to a few houses to go trick-or-treating. We just went to the houses where we knew the people (and they knew us/Addie). People were VERY generous giving out candy. There is no way they could have given as much candy to each of the other kids as they did to Addie...I think it has to do with her being so cute, but I guess I am a little biased.

Our little lion:

Siblings:

Happy kids:

Winnie the Pooh. As a sidenote, Addie wore this Winnie the Pooh costume for Halloween last year and it fit very well. It is size 3-6 months (Addie was born in April). Before we had Levi, we had planned for him to wear this outfit for Halloween, even though we thought it would be way too big since he was born 4 months later than Addie. We were wrong! It fit him well-he is growing so much faster than Addie did!

Ready to go:

He's such a great smiler. Who would've thought it would be easier to get a good, smiling picture of a 2 and a half month old than an 18 month old?

Sitting down in the driveway with her pumkin-not sure why: When we got back home, she had her first lollipop: